And it's all over....

Stockholm was fantastic! It was great to see so many of you in the Race Village and be able to show you what I've been doing the past year! Before the boats left I left for St Petersburg. I had a couple of very hectic days before the boats arrived on Saturday the 27th. It was a spectacular finish even if the rain was poring down! We ended the race on Sunday with a public prize giving midday and a dinner in the evening. With bottles of Vodka on the table anyone can imagine how that party ended... I stayed away from the Vodka and had a great evening! Everyone in our team left Monday afternoon and it's hard to realize that a lot of people that you spent the last months with you never going to see again!
So, home to do laundry and repack. Tomorrow I'm going up to Marstrand for Match Cup Sweden. As we are a boat sponsor I'm more or less going to be there to take anything that comes our way. With the great weather and a lots of friends working up there, I'm really looking forward to it.
So the rest of the summers like this:
This week Match Cup Sweden.
Work one week.
Strömstad one week with Anna and Monica.
4 days in my house.
10 days in Lysekil for WM in Match Racing for Women.
One week in Cowes for Cowes sailing week and the start of Fast Net race.
Back to work for three weeks to finish up.
September.... No idea! Hopefully I can take a month off and spend in my house.
Hopefully I also get to see you during the summer! I will most likely not come to Stockholm until earliest September, but you're more than welcome to visit me when I'm in Göteborg.
Have a great summer!

Stockholm - here we come!

Finally in Stockholm! Arrived earlier today and the Race Village looks great, even if my brother Stefan and his fiancee Lisa missed the Volvo pavilion.... Fabienne and I took the train in the afternoon. A great way to travel, especially with Internet connection! We worked the whole way, very efficient! Arrived and had a short look at the Race Village and went for dinner at Sallys in Gamla stan. Very nice! Ingrid, Magnus and I had another glas of wine and my brother and Lisa joined us. We then went for a quick walk to the Race Village. The boats have just arrived to Sanhamn. There were many of us that hoped for Mange to win, but he ended up second, just a hundred meter after the winner Puma. Poor Mange, but second is not too bad! Looking forward to the boats arriving to Stockholm on Wednesday and to see you all in the Race Village!
Time for bed!

Stockholm waiting!

So, we have left Marstrand behind. We had a great, but very intense stopover! Boats coming in early, early morning on Thursday, which meant more or less no sleep that night... We then had a couple of days with rain and strong wind, but for the weekend the sun came out and we had two great days! Yesterday we saw the boats off to Stockholm. I was on the Ostindiefararen Gotheborg and helped out with the start gun. It was a great start with a lot of people out in smaller motorboats and lots of people on the rocks watching from the shore. The boats left and all looked good until we heard reports of Telefonica Blue had hit a rock. They sat on the rock for two hours before they got help to get off the rock and back to shore. They will not sail this leg and the fight for the second place is probably over... It's really a shame as we had hoped for Telefonica Blue and Puma to put up a good show now at the end of the race as there is only one point between them on the score board! Poor Bowe Bekking, the skipper. His boat Moviestar sank last race in the Atlantic and now it looks like the fight is over again before the race is over. They are currently asessing the damages to the boat and hopefully they will get to Stockholm, but they were not too optimistic about it yesterday.
For me, I'm in the apartment and did three machines of laundry yesterday when I got home and are now going to try to repack to get the train to Stockholm this afternoon and arrive around 18. I'm usually in the Volvo Pavilion all days, or around Race Village, so come and visit! I'm leaving for St Petersburg next Thursday morning, so I have more than a week in Stockholm which feels good! Hope to see you soon!

Another day in the office...

Finally we moved out to Marstrand! The days after I came back from Galway has been hectic, but it feels very good to be on site. We spent most of the day yesterday working in the backyard of where Linda and Ebba stays and it worked very good! We got a lot done! I just had breakfast on the balcony of where I'm staying overlooking Grand Hotel and the harbour. Not too bad of an view in morning sun. So, time for a walk around the island and then work for the rest of the day.
The boats are on their way and are estimated to arrive on Thursday afternoon as the winds are to be light when they are getting nearer Sweden. It's gonna be amazing to see the fleet docked at Marstrand!

15 minutes of fame....

So, been to Galway a week and back in Göteborg again! Great stopover with a lot of public and great sailing in Saturday's Inport race. It rained, was cold and windy the first days, but in time for the big weekend the sun came out and we had very good weather and wind. Had a good day together with our Volvo guests on Saturday. Helped our Ericsson commentator Jimmy to make sure he had what he needed. He's the IT guy from Ericsson handling all the computers on board the boats and on shore. Turned out he is from Järfälla and currently live in Bolinderstrand in Kallhäll. The world is small sometimes, but I'm staying far away from IT guys these days.. :-) On Sunday I got the treat to go out with Mark Covell, used to be Media Crew Member on Team Russia, on the media boat that is going to follow the race boats the rest of the race from Galway to St Petersburg. It is purpously built for a film crew to be able to film regardless high waves etc and the boat is strong enough to be able to follow the speed of the race boats. We had a great day in the sun on the water and Mark is a great speaker and told us all the little details about the boats and the teams. Finished the day with a great Leg Prize Giving Dinner where it got way too late and too much white wine... Mark was a gentleman and kept filling up my glas at dinner... It didn't do much good either the two beer Edward and I had before even getting to the dinner... (Strange I didn't learn from Leg Prize Giving Dinner in Boston, but at least this time there were no shots...)
And I finally got caught on the TV4 camera and had my 15 minutes of fame at TV4! (or maybe one minute to be exact...)
http://tv4play.se/sport/volvo_ocean_race?videoId=1.1027677&renderingdepartment=2.34731
About 7 minutes into the film when they're interviewing Bowe Bekking, skipper of Telefonica Blue, when coming back to shore and we're standing in the background talking about the day. (One for the "Jag mötte Lassie", I was the one telling Marcus from TV4 that Bowe Bekking was on his way, so they could do the interview...)
So, no rest! Came back yesterday night and spent a full day at work to start to sort out the mess in Marstrand to finally give up at 21 this evening. The stopovers from here are so tight so there is really no time between them and it's full on from now on.
I hope to be able to visit my little house this weekend as the neighbours wanted to cut the hedges, even if I move out to Marstrand already Friday evening, and hopefully also visit Anneli Utter on my way out to Marstrand. If I get a few minutes over I will try to upload some images from Galway, but I don't dear to promise anything...
So soon we will be in Stockholm and I hope to meet most of you then!